What goes around sometimes comes back around in the most mysterious ways, which was all too true for Josh Duggar. Twenty years before becoming a convicted sex offender, the devout son of 19 Kids and Counting patriarch Jim Bob Duggar was so against anything X-rated that he boycotted a local gas station that distributed pornography.
In her memoir, Counting the Cost, Jill Duggar Dillard opens up about her then-12-year-old brother, now 36, putting together a group to boycott the place. Their father was the one who told them about the gas station selling X-rated magazines during one of their evening Bible times.
"We were all shocked and upset," the memoir read. "My older brothers Josh and John were determined to do something about it." And so they did. According to Jill, they invited other homeschooled boys to form the "Boys Christian Outreach Team—known as the Boycott Club for short."
Their plan was to buy some leaflets with information about how to become a Christian and hand them out around town. They hoped to "try to persuade everyone they knew to boycott the gas station."
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Jill went on to write about how their parents didn't want them to learn about anything sexual from the time they were young. "For as long as I can remember, my parents warned us regularly about the dangers of sin," she explained.
"They told us that sin came in many forms, like lying, stealing, disobeying our parents, or being a tattletale (which my parents called 'stirring up contention among the brethren')," she continued. "But perhaps the most dangerous and destructive sins of all were around sex and temptation."
But regardless of all their teachings within their upbringing, it was revealed in 2006 that Josh had been investigated for inappropriately touching five underage girls, his sisters included. In 2015, a news report stated that he had active accounts on Ashley Madison, which is website used for facilitating extramarital affairs. He admitted to cheating on his wife Anna Duggar, whom he married in 2008 and shares seven kids with, and having a pornography addiction.
"I have been the biggest hypocrite ever," he said in a statement then. "While espousing faith and family values, I have secretly over the last several years been viewing pornography on the internet and this became a secret addiction and I became unfaithful to my wife."
Though he asked the public for forgiveness, Josh was later arrested in 2021 on charges of receiving and possessing child pornography and found guilty on two charges. He was sentenced to 12 1/2 years in prison in May 2022.
In her memoir, Jill mentioned that their parents had sent Josh away for a while to deal with his thoughts and actions, but he was back home by the time they started filming their first documentary special. "By the time 14 Children and Pregnant Again! was complete, Josh had returned to live with us. His head had been shaved, I guess in an attempt to punish him or instill some humility. I wasn’t worried about him, though. I was a kid, and I trusted that things would get better now that Josh had been 'fixed.'"
If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, the National Sexual Assault Hotline provides confidential 24/7 support. Call 800-656-HOPE (4673) or chat online at RAINN.
